What is the difference between these two jobs within IBD? Career wise which is better if one wants to do PE or VC in future? Thanks in advance.
For financial sponsors, it really depends whether it’s a coverage group or more like a traditional leveraged finance group that does deal execution. You want to be in a group that’s more like leveraged finance. Basically, if your financial sponsors team is crap or all you do is coverage, you won’t see much deal flow thus not much valuation work and you won’t have that many PE exit opportunities. Career-wise, both M&A and financial sponsors well for PE and VC. I think that if your goal is to go into PE, financial sponsors could make more sense because not only would you get more exposure to PE clients (it’s not uncommon for them to hire someone that they like), but you’ll also hopefully do a lot of LBO modeling. However, what matters most is deal experience and the quality of deal flow, so if it came down to a good M&A group versus a so-so leveraged finance experience, I would pick the M&A role.
Good comments. I’d advise the OP to check-in with your contacts at the bank as well. What is the group incl the MD like? Who does well ? There is only so much one can figure out from the outside in.
Thanks numi and cfaatsb.